L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“Frig,” Nylan muttered under his breath, as he cut off the power again. He’d been certain that the laser would cut through the rock. Lasers cut everything, from cloth to metal. Why wouldn’t they cut rock?

Because, his engineering training pointed out, they burned through other substances, and the rock could absorb more heat than cloth or sheet metal, and it didn’t accept the heat evenly, either.

“Problems, ser?” Huldran blotted the sweat oozing across her forehead.

“Some basic engineering I need to work out.”

He needed to work out more than basic engineering.

After taking another deep breath, he triggered the laser once more and reached out with his thoughts, as though he were still on the neuronet, ignoring the impossibility of the setting, and smoothed the power flow. This time, the rock began to smoke along the focal line of the laser, and a slight line slowly etched itself along the chalk stripe.

Nylan depowered the laser, and checked the power meter-half a percent gone for nothing, nothing but a scratch on black rock.

“Ser?” Huldran stepped forward to look at the black stone.

“We’re getting there,” he lied, pushing the goggles back and wiping his damp forehead. “It’s slow. Everything’s slow.”

“If you say so, ser.”

Could he narrow the focus, somehow use the netlike effect to redirect the heat into a narrower line? If he couldn’t,the laser wasn’t going to be much good for stone-cutting.

Replacing the goggles, he checked to see that the head was set in the narrowest focus, then triggered the power. As the fields built, he juggled the smoothing of the power flow and his efforts to channel power into the thinnest line of energy possible. For an instant, all he got was more stoneetching, then, abruptly, the lightknife sliced through the black rock.

Nylan’s eyes flicked to the power meter-the flow was half what it should be. He stopped his-were they imaginary? — efforts to smooth the flow and felt the red-white swirl and watched the meter needle rise and the slicing stop. Hurriedly, he went back to his not-so-imaginary efforts to reduce the laser power flow fluxes, letting himself drop into the strange pseudonet feeling that eased the energy flows to the laser and reinforced the energy concentrations. Even though he had no scientific explanation for the phenomenon, his efforts reduced the energy draw of the cutter by nearly fifty percent, while cutting stone in a way he wasn’t certain was possible, and he wasn’t about to turn his back on anything that effective, whether he could explain it or not.

As the tip of the laser reached the end of the chalked line, Nylan eased it back along the second line, then along the third, before releasing the stud. He wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, then knelt, adjusted the powerhead, and positioned the laser for the undercut.

Still concentrating, he powered the laser, smoothed the flow, and drew it along the line. Then he released the stud, and, using the gauntlets he had pressed into service to protect his hands from rock droplets, he tried to wiggle the stone. The whole line wobbled.

He nodded and began the cross-cuts.

When he finished those, the line of clouds had passed, and the sun was again beating down on him. The first individual building stone came away from the black rock easily, and Nylan smiled and lifted the goggles.

“Take’em away, Huldran.”

The stocky blond marine motioned to Berlis and Weindre. “You two-come and help.”

Nylan plopped down on a low stone and wiped his forehead, feeling even more drained than when he had ridden the Winterlance ’s net, more drained than from overuse of reflex boost. His eyes flicked downhill. Through the narrow opening in the gorge he could see most of the field to the east of the tower site. Thin sprigs of green sprouted from the hand-furrowed rows. To the north, where he could not see, there were longer green leaves from the field where the potatoes and other root crops had been planted in hillocks.

“These are heavy,” grunted Weindre, staggering down to the sledge with a single block.

“That’s the idea,” said Huldran. “We can’t waste power on small blocks. Besides, bigger blocks are harder to smash with primitive technology. So stop complaining and get on with carrying.”

When the three had cleared out the half-dozen blocks, Nylan stood and chalked more lines, longer ones, and went back to work.

By the time he had finished the next line, his knees were wobbling. He sank onto the stone after he depowered the laser and pushed the goggles onto his forehead.

“Darkness-the engineer’s white like a demon tower.” Huldran looked at Nylan. “Don’t move.” She turned to Berlis and Weindre. “You can still load those blocks on the sledge. Berlis, you can lead the horse down the gorge and out to the tower site.” The stocky blond marine looked at Nylan. “I’ll be right back. Just sit there.”

Nylan couldn’t have taken a step if he’d wanted to, not without falling on his face, not the way the gorge threatened to turn upside down around him.

He sat blankly until Huldran returned and thrust a cup in front of his face. He drank, and the swirling within his head slowly subsided enough for him to take a small mouthful of the concentrate-fortified sawdust called energy bread. He chewed slowly.

Ayrlyn walked up the gorge carrying a medkit, steppingaround Berlis and the slowly descending horse and sledge.

“What happened to you? You look like you stayed on boost too long.”

Nylan finished the mouthful of bread. “I think I overdid it.”

“What do you mean?”

“A variation on the law of conservation of energy and matter, or something like that.” Nylan wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

Ayrlyn looked at Huldran, who looked at Weindre. Weindre shrugged.

“This place allows me to operate on something like the neuronet, and I can smooth the power flows to the laser and focus the laser into a tighter beam. That lets me cut with about half the power. It’s not free, though.”

The flame-haired former comm officer nodded. “Heavy labor? Like boost?”

Nylan nodded.

Huldran’s blond eyebrows knitted in puzzlement.

“On the ship’s net,” Nylan tried to explain, “the fusactors supply the power to sustain the net. It’s a small draw compared to the total power expended by the system, but it’s real. This … place … is different. I can replicate the effect of the net-but I have to supply some form of power, energy-and it’s just like working.”

“That local in white …?” began Ayrlyn, her eyes widening.

“Probably something like that, but I don’t know.” Nylan finished off the chunk of energy bread, and took another gulp of the nutrient replacement. “It’s frustrating. I find a way to save power, and it’s limited by my strength.”

“It’s a lot faster than using a sledge and chisel to quarry the rock,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

“It’s slow.”

“Can anyone else do it?”

“I don’t know.” Nylan shrugged. “I’d guess it’s like being an engineer or a pilot or a comm officer. If you have some basic talents, you can learn it, but …”

“Can you use the laser again, and let me try to watch or follow?” Ayrlyn looked around. “You two try also.”

Nylan stood and stretched. “I’ll cut a few.” He used the chalk and roughed out the lines he needed, then picked up the powerhead. “Ready?”

“Go ahead.”

He dropped the goggles in place, touched the stud, and began to smooth the fluxes, trying to be as gentle as possible, and realizing that the gentle efforts were nearly as effective and not quite so draining.

After the first cut, he stopped. “Well?”